The National Prayer Weekend

So what is the NPW?

CWR believes that prayer is powerful, and we want to respond to God’s call to love our neighbours and the people around us. The concept is simple – ask people in your local area whether they would like prayer. Gather the prayer requests together and pray for them. You can pray as an individual, with your small group, or get your whole church involved.

Why did the NPW start?

The National Prayer Weekend is an opportunity for Christians to show God’s love to those around them in a real and tangible way, as churches and communities unite in prayer for their local area. The National Prayer Weekend is inspired by CWR's roots of personal and national transformation through prayer and Bible reading. CWR first launched the National Prayer Weekend in 2015 to mark CWR’s 50th anniversary of serving and equipping the Church and Christians to walk every day with Jesus. Since 2015 thousands of Christians all over the world have used the National Prayer Weekend to join together in prayer for their local communities.

How do I get started with the NPW?

Pray – take time out to bring your National Prayer Weekend event, ideas and community before God. Ask God to show you people and places to pray for. Courage to invite people to pray and to guide you on your weekend.

Pins – once you have registered with the NPW you can put your pin on the map. Watch the Prayer Map get covered in pins representing people praying all over the world.

Plan – Share new ways to pray and think about how you might host events. Where could you pray? Who with? Maybe you want to advertise a morning of prayer in your church, or perhaps you want to take to the streets and lead a prayer walk around your town or plan a 24-7 praise and prayer event.

Resources – You will be able to access free, easily customisable resources such as letter templates to contact local schools and prayer invitation cards from the NPW website. Use them as little or as much as you like. And accessible, engaging books and booklets ideal for introducing people who do not yet know Jesus to prayer are also available to buy, both for adults and children.

Connecting with your community - Think about how you want to collect prayer requests and who you want to ask. Think about local businesses, services, organisations, schools and hospitals and how you would like to approach them. Maybe you could write letters, or set up an email address for people to send their requests to. There are lots of different ideas in the How-to Guide.

Once you’ve collected the prayer requests, keep them together ready for the NPW.

What happens on the actual weekend?

If praying as a church, you could open up the building (or even erect a gazebo) to create a space to invite people into. Or stand on your local high street, taking prayer requests from shoppers. Organise a neighbourhood prayer walk or a 24/7 prayer event in your church.

The National Prayer Weekend is about your community, bringing prayer and God back to the centre of it. Why not use the opportunity to show people how much fun prayer can be!

What about after the NPW?

The National Prayer Weekend is all about giving your local community the opportunity to be prayed for and to show God’s love to those around you. So, keep in touch with the people you meet over the weekend.

Use the follow-up cards found in the resources section of the website as a way of letting people know that they were prayed for and that you care about them. Maybe they will have some stories to share about how your prayer affected their lives as a result of the weekend.

Remember to celebrate as a prayer team and tell us about your NPW experience.

We really want to hear all about your weekend! What was your favourite moment? Did you have any answers to prayer? We want to share your stories to encourage even more people to pray for their community. Please contact us. You can also follow us on Facebook andon Twitter!